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William Jahn (guest)
CA:

The battle isn't about jobs or even health care. It's about entitlement. This Congress and the president believe that ultimately Americans want cradle to grave entitlement. So do many Republicans. The question is can the last vestige of Americans who believe in freedom above security convince their fellow Americans it is in their long term interest to reject the nanny state.
I have no financial interest nor am I working with any political campaign.

Abdur Azad (guest)
NY:

The labor report undoubtedly is a positive sign. Iraq war is over. Health care reform bill has come into law, breaking decades of bottleneck. Closing of Guantanamo has been moving in the right direction. Now if Afghanistan gives any positive result, I am sure, midterm elections will be a nightmare for Republicans. At the moment, the only thing absent is: FIRING UP THE DEM GRASS ROOTS. Generally, that may spark any time.

Todd Bray (guest)
CA:

Job growth due to Republican policies happens overseas not in the USA.

Stephen Bell (guest)
CA:

I wished I lived on the planet Darrell West lives on, if there is such a place. His comment is the poster child of why you "inside the beltway" people need to get out every now and then and join the real world. The unemployment rate didn't change, 1/3 of the "new" jobs were temporary government workers, and only the most partisan hacks think that the health care bill will create jobs. Over 300 publicly traded companies have already said that it is going to affect their bottom line in a significant way. Even people with jobs are looking over their shoulder wondering if today is going to be "pink slip" day. If I were you, Darrell, I would take a loooonnnng vacation starting November 2, 2010. What's going to happen is not going to make you happy.

Jim Jenkins (guest)
IA:

Snapo: The line tightens and you realize, too late, you're hooked. You want to believe Obama is a centrist and triangulating or moving toward the center, and so you swallow the last little drilling hook, happy in the belief that Obama is just another Bill Clinton liberal. And you couldn't be more wrong. This so-called drill effort is hedged with maybes, perhaps, possibly's, and more weasel words than one can count. And he's allegedly going to permit prospecting in places not known to have oil. Yet in the places where oil is known to exist -- off the Pacific coast and in Alaska -- not even any weasel ifs, maybes, or possibly's. If Obama was interested in triangulating with drilling, he'd authorize it in the areas where oil is already known to exist. It's like announcing you want to buy a lobster roll. If you really want a lobster roll for lunch, you'll head for Maine. If you want some suckers to THINK you're going to order a lobster roll, you'll head for Omaha or Kansas City; you find lobster rolls in Maine where the lobsters are. You find oil in Alaska where the oil is known to exist. You'll find no lobsters in Kansas City; you'll find no oil off the East coast. And someone is surprised?

Lorenzo Davenport (guest)
GA:

I think readers are growing tired of the media trying to prop up the economy and this president. The economy is bad, period. I know of friends who have lost jobs over the last couple of years, and many have found new ones BUT at much lower salaries. These people show up as "employed" but their purchasing power is diminished along with their self-esteem.

Jay Smith (guest)
TX:

Remember the 2000 election. Decent economy, perception of a peaceful world, and all seemed to be generally well. Yet the incumbent party lost the White House. Between the administration's spending spree, socialized health care agenda, energy policy in favor of higher prices (look up Secretary Chu's comments on Wednesday), and misguided approach to foreign policy, there will be plenty of obstacles in the way of an Obama reelection, even if one were to make the assumption that the economy will be humming along by 2012.

Keith Harcus (guest)
MT:

I recorded my "state" as Montana because I am from Alberta which is close to Montana. Canadians and Americans share many values and by observing the Canadian canary in the Health Care coal mine you can avoid some future problems in your Health System. I have capitalized Health System because as it incrementally grows over decades it will become a deity that cannot be criticized for fear of being labeled some type of Satan. Obama will always be remembered as "He who gave us Health care" and 50 years from now the paternalistic state will be credited to him and those with memories will ask where did the Health Care monster come from?

Joseph Dollar (guest)
NC:

When you back out the 48,000 temporary census jobs and the 40,000 temporary help services jobs, the core number of jobs created is only 74,000 which is an extremely slow pace given that many economists say the recession ended in the 3rd quarter of ’09. Looking at the trend line from January’s and February’s upwardly revised job numbers, the picture is clearly a very weak recovery with minimal traction at this point. The March numbers were off expectations and the core number lower still - from a political perspective the White House is probably pleased these numbers were announced on a day when the stock market was closed. A stat which will likely be missed by most of the media is the increase in the long-term unemployed, those without jobs for more than 26 weeks which rose by 414,000 in March. The early 2010 trajectory of job growth must substantially quicken if there is to be any reasonable progress toward recovering the 8.5+ million jobs lost in the recession or employing the 15 million currently out of work.

Lynn Collins (guest)
GA:

Politico headline picture caption: Obama gets the first unequivocally good news on nation's employment picture. Oh really? "The jobs number was about as bad as it could be to still be called "good news." That is, the gain in total jobs was below forecast but still significant. On the downside, about a third of the new jobs were temporary census jobs. Hourly wages fell, the unemployment rate did not budge and the underemployment rate edged up." (Walter Russell Mead) Which is it? Don't answer that. I already know. Thanks for presenting both the WH headline and the facts though.

Michael Vogler (guest)
VA:

It helps the president. The fact we are inching further and further away from 10% unemployment helps the Democrats and gives them another month to tell us that the stimulus package worked. But the devil is in the details in this job market. Many people are now saying to themselves, "at least I have a job." I mean, what kind of outlook is that to have as an individual? Many people have stopped looking for work, and as I mentioned, many people are underemployed. The fact is, the so-called "experts" in either Washington or some think-tank can tell us all the economy is getting better and we are going to see economic growth throughout the world and in this country, but the bottom line is this economy is not vibrant. Our domestic companies are over regulated. We have government mandates, controls and taxes at every level. And now our health care industry, the one industry that was actually growing throughout this recession, will have to compete with a federal government that has to be accountable to nobody and can run deficits year in and year out, just like every other government program. Yeah ha! 9.7% unemployment - thanks a bunch, Democrats, for all the help. November can't come soon enough.

Paul Cass (guest)
CA:

It remains to be seen whether Obama can break through the lies Republicans keep telling to blame him for a recession that started when they were in power and was caused by their disastrous policies. Republicans' solution for the economy is always the same - give big business and the rich whatever they want, and hope that the benefits somehow, someday trickle down to the rest of the country. Obama's only chance of making a positive impression on voters' perception of the economy between now and November is to ignore Republicans' snake oil prescriptions and add jobs by direct government action, as he should have done a year ago.

Al Zeller (guest)
NY:

Last month the jobs number was dragged down because of the snow storms in the East. This month we see a recovery of those jobs, but spin as he will try Obama will not get much help from them. Less than half of these jobs were new jobs and with the uptick in the underemployed number that means a number of them were people that just took a job flipping burgers because their unemployment was running out. Next month there will need to be 300k to 500k new jobs and a drop in the underemployed number to start a real trend that may prove helpful this fall.

Ben Holcomb (guest)
GA:

Not likely to help President Obama. Until he really focuses on creating value in the economy and not census jobs he will suffer with the electorate. Our organization www.savingpontiac.org believes that 60,000 direct and indirect jobs could be created almost overnight with assets the taxpayers already own; Ron Bloom's response? Not interested. Hopefully our administration will move to create real American jobs soon. Ignoring the impact on the president, America needs jobs NOW!

John M (guest)
NC:

To Frank M - When job growth does not even lower total unemployment by one-tenth of one percent, the country is still in trouble. You can put all the positive spin and optimism on that 162,000 number, the point is job growth is stagnant. And some advice for you to take or leave. Not everyone who is not satisified with Obama and his colleagues watches Fox News. People like yourself with those opinions need a dose of reality. Fox News has viewership in the 3 million range. Do you think that is every registered independent voter in the country or every Republican voter for that matter as well?

Tim Gorman (guest)
KS:

Good news? This isn't good news, it's just more of the same. State revenue collections for fiscal year 2010 were down almost $200 billion. They are forecast to be down $180 billion for fiscal year 2011. It will be 2013 before revenues return to 2008 levels. All the pundits seem to be able to do is say "not as bad" is actually "good." This is a perfect example of Orwellian doublethink. It's a willingness to say black is white when Party discipline requires it AND TO ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT. You liberal Dems who don't understand that the people have figured this out are just living in a fantasy world. As someone pointed out, *everyone* knows someone, and quite likely multiple someones, that are still out of work with no prospects on the horizon for a decent job. Nothing Obama has done will change this. All he has done is reward the teachers unions and SEIU for their support and grown government employment (AND PAY!) to levels unbelievable to most citizens. This is NOT going to turn around by this Nov. Liberal Dems need to be worried, VERY worried, about their own job security come this fall. Some of them may just discover how hard it is in today's job market.

Mark Davidson (guest)
TN:

Perhaps I should not be shocked given the usual discourse in the beltway, but I'm surprised at level of spin around this latest report, on both sides of the aisle. One might say that the only real takeaways are 1) given this report and the prior, perhaps unemployment levels may have reached a narrow band of movement and hopefully it will not get much worse, and 2) unfortunately the numbers don't give much hope to any short term recovery given the impact of census workers, albeit slight to the overall metric. The "census impact" will continue to skew this monthly report for a bit, and it will be amusing to see which dishonest leaders jump on this report as some sort of good news! It's much easier to have dialogue on real solutions to problems when the truth is acknowledged - we have, and will continue to have, a jobs problem. Unfortunately, aside from diverting massive amounts of tax dollars into "job creation" or "stimulus" items that only serve to create temporary employment around projects, there's not much being done to materially foster new jobs creation. To the spinners - feel free to keep on spinning. It's at least mildly amusing to read.

-Mark Davidson - I'm not a Democrat or Republican, but rather a Constitutionalist

Frank Parker (guest)
VA:

Uh....Temporary census takers make up one-third of the new jobs? What a great uptick that brings to the job market.

Frank Parker (guest)
VA:

If Professor Blakeman wants to write (for Politico or anyone) he needs a good editor to help him with the English language....There for their, etc. A great point made is completely blunted when the language skills are lacking.

Laura Halvorsen (guest)
FL:

I'll have whatever Darrell West is having. Nobody living on this planet, much less in this country, would describe our economy as "getting better" or "stronger." At least not without their tongue planted firmly in their cheek. And contrary to his contention, recent polls show that nearly 70% of voters think the passage of health care is actually going to worsen the economy by adding exponentially to our deficit. An unemployment rate of 9.7% is nothing to crow about, nor something that can be described as a "big plus." Remember, that figure is an average. Here in my swing state of Florida, our unemployment rate was reported last week at 12.3%. And the national underemployment average is now 20.3%. Not exactly cause for patting oneself on the back. Come November, don't be shocked to discover that the rest of the country isn't singing Obama's praises along with you.

Dean Jackson (guest)
IL:

No, you would need significant improvement to help. I am unaware of any realistic forecast that has the rate dropping below 8% this year. There will be an artificial blip as census workers are hired, but that will quickly reverse. And there are political ramifications, like them or not. GHW Bush lost in '92 in large part because of the first post-war "jobless recovery." The unemployment rate in 11/92 was 7.4%. The more meaningful U6 number, now 16.9%, has never been higher than 12% prior to this presidency (data only goes back to '94).

Mike Gorman (guest)
OH:

9.7% unemployment is still 9.7% unemployment no matter how you spin it. We had a huge stimulus bill shoved down our throats with all sorts of promises. We were told that is we did not pass the stimulus bill more people would lose their jobs and unemployment would skyrocket. Well the stimulus bill did not work and it will cost our children and grandchildren. The media along with their liberal pals act as though the stimulus bill was just a small gamble to get the economy going. It did not work, neither will the healthcare bill. The people in charge are clueless and they are simply using a shotgun approach to solve these problems. I am a conservative and conservatives will quickly turn on a Republican if they do not like what is going on. Democrats and liberals however will stick with their guy or girl no matter what. Obama has been a failure, 9.7% unemployment is still 9.7% unemployment and where is the return on our huge investment (stimulus)?

Chris Sells (guest)
AL:

While there will be a focus on the added jobs and avoiding the 9.7% figure, questions need to be answered. What sector of private industry is growing significantly? Roughly 50,000 of these jobs were just in the census. What other government sectors added to jobs growth? Remember the census will add roughly 700,000 to million through July (correct if wrong) and these are temporary. In looking at the bigger picture it appears this economic recovery is puttering along as a car on its last legs.

Jon Davenport (guest)
TX:

Let's be honest - the only reason unemployment held steady is because 1/3 of the new jobs created were temporary census jobs which will disappear in 3-4 months. Otherwise the unemployment number would have risen, not held steady. Obama and Nancy have a policy of stating that EVERY bill they pass is a jobs bill - evidence to the contrary be damned. The gov't can "create" jobs but they can't create income or private capital. They can get out of the way but this gov't hasn't done so and instead has further encumbered the private market. The economy will eventually take care of itself, as it always has, but the admin may actually be right about something - that it will take a long time to bring jobs back without being honest about why. Further encumbering businesses with new taxes and obligations discourages growth - not promote it. If the president really wants to create jobs then do another summit with private employer groups AND Republicans, listen and then institute those things that are void of politics. If it doesn't work then he scores his precious political victory, or it does work and he scores a precious political victory.

Nick Wilson (guest)
TX:

These numbers should not help Obama politically. Considering the unfathomable amount of money the government has thrown at the problem, I think we're getting to the point where if Keynesianism was such a great solution, it's time for tangible results - and these numbers don't even measure the true unemployment rate. They could have just given every family a large rebate (a solution that would have been progressive as well) instead of inexplicably spending $190,000 per job created. At minimum, Obama must stop making poorly planned economic policies that are going to hurt business, enabling the irresponsible at the expense of the responsible and leaving everyone uncertain about what the rules of the game will be in a year from now.

Kenneth Wills (guest)
TX:

That's a loaded question, David, and it misses the mark. A 9.7% unemployment rate is not going to help the president. If you're referring to the recent job report of the economy adding 160 thousand plus jobs, that does help the president because it shows his policies are beginning to have an effect. It takes a while to dig out of the economic disaster created by Republicans driven by conservative ideology.

Frank M (guest)
NJ:

Of course this is good news for Obama and the country. It's not only most jobs added in a month since he took office, it's the most jobs added in a month in nearly the last 2 years of the dreaded Bush administration. It is however bad news for the zombie nation who watches Fox and actually believes they are fair and balanced when they have Karl Rove as a guest on the Glenn Beck Show.

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